Paradox: The Hunt
by 2Distracted
Summary: It's Episode 3 of Season Six. Time to go Tolaris hunting.


**Virtual Season Six**

**Episode Three : The Hunt**

By Distracted

Rating: PG-13

Disclaimer: Not mine. No money made here.

Summary: It's Episode 3 of Season 6. Time to go a-hunting for Tolaris and a certain Ferengi doctor.

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**August 3, 2156 **_**Enterprise**_

Phlox sat at the comm console in Sickbay with a look of forced politeness on his face. He was nearing the end of his patience with the bland-faced Vulcan physician whose image faced him on the view screen. He'd followed protocol to the letter. The Vulcan Science Directorate had referred him to their medical training academy. The Academy's main office had referred him to their clinical services division. Clinical Services had referred him to the department of Clinical Neurology, and after a two-hour wait he was finally talking to Clinical Director Serak, by all accounts the foremost expert in Vulcan neurological conditions on Vulcan. Either the man was being deliberately obtuse, or he was the most unintelligent Vulcan Phlox had ever encountered. Somehow, despite appearances, Phlox didn't think the man was stupid.

"I understand that melding had been out of the purview of acceptable social behavior for several centuries until the rediscovery of the Kirshara, Doctor," said Phlox patiently, "…but surely you must have records and data concerning the medical consequences of forced melds amongst the minority of Vulcans who were continuing the practice. Anything that you might have regarding the treatment of the condition would be helpful. The Vulcan medical database contains nothing on the subject."

"That is because such data does not exist," replied the Vulcan flatly. His face was completely expressionless. "Even voluntary melding was considered illicit and was prohibited by law, Doctor. Forced melds would have been considered unacceptable even by those who practiced melding regularly. If any adverse consequences did occur, they were not brought to medical attention. I cannot help you."

Phlox's brow wrinkled in frustration. "But melds have been legal on Vulcan for over a year now! Surely there has been at least _one_ instance of an adverse consequence in that time."

The Vulcan stiffened slightly. "Despite being legal, melding remains an activity which is controlled by the priesthood, Doctor. It is a sacred ritual. Forced melds are not permitted." His eyes dropped away for a fraction of a second before returning to the screen.

_He's hiding something_, thought Phlox. His eyes widened a bit as it occurred to him that the Vulcan hadn't even mentioned the obvious military applications of melding. He paused for a second, debating the diplomatic consequences of his question, and then he forged ahead. Hess' revival was worth the risk of a diplomatic incident.

"Can you refer me, then, to the department of clinical neurology at a research facility run by your Ministry of Security? I'm certain that the military applications of this technique have not escaped the logical minds of your military researchers," Phlox replied with a small smile.

The Vulcan's bland façade abruptly cracked. His chin came up in obvious offense. "As I said, Doctor… I cannot help you. Your patient's condition is regrettable, but it is not one than I am able to treat." His eyes met Phlox's for a moment. His jaw was clenched. He opened his mouth as if to say something, and then closed it abruptly, reached forward, and cut the connection. The screen went black.

Phlox blinked in startled surprise. _He was __**definitely**__ hiding something_, he decided ruefully. He pushed back from the console with a frustrated sigh and rubbed the back of his neck, thinking intently. The Vulcan database hadn't been of any help at all. This Serak fellow had at least given him reason to believe that the information he needed existed somewhere, although obtaining highly classified data from the Vulcan Security Ministry would likely prove to be an impossible task. He needed another source. He pulled up his list of medical contacts once again, searching for ideas, and smiled an impossibly broad smile when he discovered the solution to his predicament.

"V'Mel, Personal Physician to Chief Minister T'Pau" was the listing that caught his eye. An older, rather motherly Vulcan female, V'Mel had assisted him with the bioweapon vaccination testing of the Vulcan High Council and its representative congress members during the infamous "blowing up the doors" incident last year. As the personal physician of the most famous melder on the planet, she was the source he needed. If she hadn't made it her business to learn about the medical consequences of melds gone wrong, then he'd gravely misjudged her in the few hours that he'd spent working with her. He turned back to the comm console to place the call.

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T'Mir was awakened by a deep throbbing ache in her right forearm and an unsettling sense of _movement_ within her wound. It was evidently time for pain medication and a new supply of medicinal maggots. She rolled to her side on the biobed and sat up slowly. She was slightly lightheaded from the pain, and hunger roiled in her belly after her overnight fast, her body craving calories to repair the damage done to it, but she felt otherwise quite clear headed and well-rested. Slipping off the side of the bed and down to the floor, she stepped away from the bed, pulling aside the privacy curtain. Her sharp Vulcan ears picked up the distinctive voice of the doctor.

"No, Doctor V'Mel… I'm afraid that no one on board has been trained in the art of the healing meld. Are you saying that that's the only way to bring Lieutenant Commander Hess to consciousness?" The Denobulan physician sounded disappointed. T'Mir was unable to hear the response to his question, but it sounded like he was at the comm station. The murmur of a female voice was audible but indecipherable.

"I understand," replied Phlox in a resigned voice. "I'll keep her comfortable until our current mission is complete and we can make our way to Vulcan. Thank you for the information and for your offer of assistance." The female's response was brief.

T'Mir caught sight of the doctor as she walked through the center of Sickbay. He sat with his hands dangling between his knees on a chair set in front of the darkened comm screen. He had a dejected expression on his face. When he caught sight of her, his expression cleared, replaced by one of pleasant concern. In his own way, the Denobulan was as adept at hiding his true emotions as any Vulcan.

"Why, good morning, my dear," he said with a cheerful smile. "How are you feeling this morning?"

T'Mir eyed him acerbically. "Better than Lieutenant Commander Hess, I gather," she told him.

His smile became a bit forced as he approached her to check the circulation in the dusky fingers peeking out from the end of her bandages.

"There's no need for you to concern yourself with Hess. You've got enough to worry about already," he reassured her. He took her by the elbow and led her to the rear of the chamber where he kept the numerous biologicals that he preferred to use for medical treatment. "Lie down here," he said, indicating the treatment table. "It's time for a dressing change, and then some food." He grasped a hypospray from the side table and injected it into the side of her neck. "Here's a non-narcotic pain reliever," he told her with a smile. "We can't have you falling asleep at the breakfast table, now can we?"

T'Mir raised a brow at him, and then climbed atop the treatment table, watching with interest as he unwrapped her forearm and carefully retrieved his precious medical assistants. He removed the leeches first. They were fat, round, immobile, and green this morning, looking nothing like the flat, dark grey, fluidly mobile creatures that had attached themselves to her fingertips the night before.

"They aren't moving. Is my blood toxic to them?" she asked with clinical curiosity.

Phlox smiled cheerfully as he deposited each one in a vial and dated it. "Not a bit…," he reassured her. "These leeches have been modified to thrive on Vulcan blood. I had a supply made when Commander T'Pol came aboard." He met her eyes with a curious expression and then lowered his voice as he continued. "Despite your mixed heritage, your blood elements are entirely Vulcan. The leeches should flourish on it. Your circulation is already improving." His implied question hung in the air between them as he retrieved a new set of the flat grey helminths and attached them to her fingers.

T'Mir watched him as he worked. Although he hadn't asked, she thought it only logical to provide him with an explanation. "Your counterpart in my home timeline dosed me with a chemotherapeutic regimen that completely destroyed my hematopoetic system when I was six months old. Then he performed a bone marrow transplant using my mother's bone marrow."

It was Phlox's turn to raise a brow. He donned gloves and began to painstakingly pick the fat white maggots from the base of her wound with a pair of forceps. "A daring treatment. It might have killed you. You're very fortunate that it succeeded," he replied with his attention still focused on what he was doing. He deposited the maggots delicately on top of a moistened sponge in the bottom of a small cage, evidently to allow them to complete their life cycle and become the flies that would eventually provide him with more maggots. Then he pulled out a fresh supply of tiny white newborns and began to place them in the wound. T'Mir could already see the charred tissues receding. Soon there would be nothing left but healthy living tissue, and healing could begin in earnest.

"It didn't… not entirely," admitted T'Mir as Phlox began re-bandaging her wound. He looked back at her expectantly. She exhaled in resignation, and then continued. Giving partial information was sometimes worse than giving no information at all.

"The transplant was successful, but the human proteins in my body made me susceptible to human diseases from which my entirely Vulcan immune system could not protect me. My mother was forced to resign from Starfleet and return to Vulcan with me for my protection. It was not safe for me to come in direct contact with humans. Even my father was required to…" Her voice trailed off as she remembered the awkwardness of paternal visits using biohazard precautions. She'd been nearly five years old before she'd understood why her _sa-mekh_ never touched her with his bare hands or kissed her, and why she never saw his face without a mask on unless he was calling her on the comm from _Enterprise_. And then he'd been killed at Cheron, along with everyone else he'd told her stories about so often.

Phlox smoothed the dressing down and gave it a final inspection. Then he picked up a bioscanner and began scanning her from head to foot. He looked up from the readings with a puzzled expression. "You seem to be coping with exposure to humans quite well. I see no evidence of infection."

T'Mir closed her eyes and nodded. Then she gave him a considering look. After a brief pause to consider the implications of what she was about to do, she took the bioscanner from him and adjusted its sensitivity. Handing it back to him, she said, "If you scan me now, you will have your explanation." Phlox ran the scanner over her briefly, and then looked back up at her with an astounded expression.

"Are they organisms?" he asked excitedly. T'Mir shook her head.

"Machines," she replied. "An adaptation of technology borrowed from one of the most dangerous species in the known universe… one which, fortunately, humans are not destined to meet for quite some time. They are called nanites. They were implanted in my body when I became a temporal agent, and they allow me to interact with humans without risk of contagion. They also accelerate my healing rate and provide other benefits that I am not at liberty to discuss."

"If I could only get a sample of them, perhaps I could find a way to make more of them," said Phlox almost to himself as he gazed at the bioscanner in fascination. T'Mir took it from him and readjusted it to its original settings. Then she handed it back to him.

"I'm afraid that allowing you to do that would upset the approved timeline, Doctor," she replied blandly, suppressing her amusement at the disappointed look on his face. "You will also find that the nanites lose function and disintegrate quite rapidly once they are removed from my body, so there is no logical reason to sacrifice one of your precious leeches in the name of science."

Phlox sighed. He smiled ruefully. "Thank you for the information, Agent T'Mir. It means a lot to me that you've trusted me with this."

T'Mir shrugged. She looked down, finding it hard to meet the doctor's eyes. "It's the least I can do," she murmured, finally looking at him. "I never had the opportunity to thank your counterpart. I have enough of my father in me to realize that I owe him my thanks. I owe _you_ my thanks, as well."

Phlox's smile broadened, and then twisted. Moisture glistened in his eyes. "You were such a beautiful baby," he told her tearfully. "I only wish that I'd thought of…"

T'Mir reached out a hand and laid it gently on his arm. "You did the best you could, Doctor," she told him softly. Her eyes met his with a poignant expression. "Your counterpart had help… and my survival carried much too high of a price."

Phlox regarded her with a puzzled but grateful look. Before he had the opportunity to ask more questions that she would be unable to answer, she made her offer.

"You've been an invaluable help to me. Doctor, and I would be remiss if I did not inform you that I may be able to be of help to you," she told him. Her chin came up, and she faced him squarely. "I never had the opportunity to complete my training, but prior to my recruitment by Temporal Operations I was in training to be a healer. I am familiar with healing melds. I am willing to make an attempt to awaken Lieutenant Commander Hess, if you wish it."

Phlox's sorrowful expression brightened immediately. T'Mir braced herself. Her last attempt at a healing meld had been traumatic, to say the least. She was not looking forward to keeping her promise, but realized that making the attempt was necessary. She'd done some research. The lieutenant commander's bouncing Latino baby boy was destined, rather late in life, to marry a gorgeous blue-eyed blonde. Their daughter would marry the future Admiral Rand, and give birth to several Rand siblings, the youngest of which would be named Janice after her great-grandmother and follow the tradition of both sides of her family by entering Starfleet and embarking on an illustrious and very well documented career. It was time for Hess to wake up. Doctor Phlox would never allow the child to be reimplanted without the lieutenant commander's consent.

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Lieutenant Hoshi Sato stepped into the captain's ready room to join the others gathered there for a mission briefing. It was a confidential meeting, closed to anyone who had not been directly involved in the mission. Agent T'Mir was still in Sickbay, as were Mrs. Archer and Lieutenant Commander Hess. Captain Archer was present to represent the interests of both human women, however, and Agent Seven, looking just a bit worse for wear with the tips of his nose and ears blackened by healing second degree frostbite and his hands wrapped in burn dressings, was present with Isis in his arms to represent the temporal operatives. Lieutenant Commander Malcolm Reed gave Hoshi a brief smile and a pleasant nod as she entered the room. She blushed just a little, but managed to return his professionally courteous gesture. Their time together the night before had been explosive and athletic, reflecting the state of frustrated arousal that they'd been in for the four days prior, trapped in a shuttlepod without privacy but forced to enact their most private sexual fantasies for a critical audience without hope of consummation. Hoshi's cheeks pinked up a bit more as she lowered herself gingerly into the chair next to Malcolm, and he smiled at her knowingly. She ignored him, but was unable to suppress the slightest of pleased smiles in return. The man was incorrigible.

"Now that we're all here, it's time to come up with a game plan," announced Captain Archer abruptly. He stood at the end of the table with a dour look on his face. He met Gary Seven's eyes and nodded. "I understand that you have both good news and bad news for us, Mr. Seven."

Gary Seven nodded regretfully. "That I do, Captain," he replied. He faced the remainder of the team. "As you both no doubt are aware, our original plan was to send two teams back down to the planet, one to locate and subdue the Romulan agent, if possible, and the other to masquerade once again as a customer of the medical center in order to have the fetuses reimplanted using the same equipment that removed them." He sighed, and then pushed a padd across the table toward Malcolm. "Your assignment will be relatively simple, Lieutenant Commander. When I hacked into the _Kreptagh_ Department of Security database, our Romulan agent was the first prisoner I came across. He evidently attempted to resist capture once he awakened after being stunned by Agent T'Mir, and killed a security officer. He is being held in a cell within the maximum security area of the detention center. The area is well-fortified, but should prove accessible using our combined talents. You'll need to choose a reliable team of at least four additional personnel to help us." Malcolm studied the padd for a moment, and his brows went up in surprise.

"This is simple?" he asked in disbelief.

Seven gave him a half-smile. "It is compared to what the other team will be up against," he quipped. Then he slid a second padd in Hoshi's direction.

"Our initial plan to use your cover ID as Mistress Sato to bring both women openly to the medical center will need to be modified," he told her. He tapped the screen of the padd in front of her. "As you can see, both women received DNA scans identifying them as property when they entered the medical center. When they disappeared, they were registered as stolen property. If we attempt to bring them back again, we'll be arrested for harboring stolen property, and both the women and the fetuses will be confiscated."

Hoshi studied the information he presented with consternation. Then she looked back up at Seven. "What about just getting hold of the equipment and someone who knows how to use it?" she asked brusquely.

Seven raised a brow in pleased surprise at her grasp of the situation. "I researched that," he told her. "The transporter equipment in question isn't compatible with any power source on board. We can bring the equipment with us for study once we know how to use it, but it would be less risky for the fetuses not to wait until Starfleet has a chance to study how the thing works before putting them back where they belong. That could take years. My suggestion is that we modify one of the shuttlepods for intersite transport so that we don't have to take _Enterprise_ into orbit around the planet. Then we take the operator into custody via transporter and 'convince' him to operate the equipment at a time when it is not being used for other purposes. We can then beam the women directly to the treatment room, perform the procedures, and beam them back out again."

"'Take into custody' and 'convince'? You mean kidnapping and torture?" asked Archer doubtfully.

"I mean obtaining the cooperation… by force if necessary… of the person responsible for removing your children from their womb so they could be sold to the highest bidder for biological warfare research," replied Seven dryly.

Archer cocked his head, raised a brow, and then nodded. "I see your point," he said.

"Can we modify the shuttle like that soon enough to make the forty-eight hour re-implantation window Phlox told us about?" asked Hoshi.

"I have the schematics. Give me Commander Tucker, three of his people, and your backup transporter matrix, and I'll have it done in an hour," said Seven briskly.

"I think it's an excellent plan. I volunteer to do the interrogation," said Malcolm with a grimly eager look on his face.

"No…," countered Hoshi. Her nostrils flared in anger. Her stomach turned as she thought of what the twisted so-called medical doctor had done to her friends. Her universal translator program hadn't been idle the last time _Enterprise_ had been boarded by Ferengi. All she had to do was bring up the logs and study them. "I'll do it," she said coldly. "In a couple of hours, I'll speak Ferengi."

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Commander Trip Tucker entered the mess hall at 0730. His dour expression reflected his mood. He spoke to no one prior to stepping up to the resequencer and announcing, "Coffee, black, hot."

Pulling the steaming cup from the dispenser, he took a cautious sip while eyeing his wife as she sat across the room at their usual table. He hadn't slept well without the warmth of her mind in his as he drifted off to sleep. It was probably his imagination, but she seemed tired as well. Her usual serene expression was a bit off this morning, and she was staring off into space instead of eating the meager portion of plomeek broth that was all she usually had for breakfast.

Trip grabbed some whole wheat toast just so he wouldn't have to listen to a lecture about not fueling his body in the morning, a pretty hypocritical sermon for T'Pol to be preaching, but one that he was certain he'd get from her after Phlox's warnings about low blood sugar causing mood swings. Phlox was not one to miss an opportunity to gain an ally to help with his medical treatments.

_After last night, I'm surprised she's not followin' me around removin' sharp objects from my hands_, he thought ruefully. He'd never in his life had any intention of killing himself. Phlox's questions had caught him completely by surprise. Apparently, all a guy had to do was cry a little and everyone assumed he wanted to off himself. Even T'Pol, who knew him better than any other living being, was being so overprotective that she was willing to cause damage to herself in order to protect him. It was frustrating.

_I'm a grown man, dammit! Why won't they believe that I can take care of myself?_ he mused as he walked toward the table to join T'Pol for breakfast. She stopped staring at the wall when he arrived, and gave him a polite and professional nod by way of greeting before resuming her breakfast. He sighed, and then nodded back with an ironic smirk. Acting out a business-only relationship with his wife in public had always been one of the fun parts of their masquerade. He'd always delighted in playing the blandly polite chief engineer opposite her emotionless Vulcan first officer while simultaneously sending images through their bond that would have made a professional sex worker blush. The outwardly tame portion of their game was no fun at all, though, without the ability to send his true feelings directly mind-to-mind. The sex part wasn't as much fun either, he'd discovered.

Despite his depressed mood and the way it had affected his interest in just about everything that usually gave him pleasure, he'd tried his best the night before to show T'Pol how much he loved and trusted her. He'd tried so hard to convince her that there was no need for her to protect him from herself. Their lovemaking had been slow and deliberate. He'd tried to break down her barriers using every trick he could think of, but she'd been too determined to keep him safe. Her body had responded, of course. There was never any question that he gave her physical pleasure, or that she was not fully involved in returning that pleasure. Her expression had been concerned and attentive to his needs, but fully controlled. She'd succeeded in maintaining control during a time which by rights _should_ have been primal and uncontrolled. The fact that she was capable of such control both awed and pained him. It saddened him to think that she found it necessary, though. Sex just lacked something essential when she refused to cut loose.

He set his coffee down on the table, pulled out a chair, and sat down. Then he picked up a slice of dry toast and gave it a resigned look before he took a bite and attempted to wash it down with more coffee. He struggled with the chewy dry texture for a bit, but managed to get it down.

"You seem to lack appetite this morning, Commander," murmured T'Pol. She made eye contact with him with her spoon paused halfway between her bowl and her mouth. The bowl was still half full. He gave it a meaningful look. She raised a brow and took a bite.

"Phlox said it'll come back in a few days, and in the meantime I should consider food as necessary fuel and just eat it anyway," replied Trip softly. He took another bite and began to chew determinedly, eyeing her challengingly. She just looked at him for a moment, and then gave in to his logical argument and began spooning her broth into her mouth. Trip resisted a childish urge to shove the entire piece of toast in his mouth at one bite, just to be able to say he'd finished his breakfast before she did. With his luck, he'd probably choke on the damned thing, and she'd have to resuscitate him. _That_ would be embarrassing.

T'Pol spooned the last bit of plomeek broth into her mouth, placed her spoon neatly beside the empty bowl, and picked up her tea mug. Trip contined to chew. He stopped and swallowed reflexively when she winced and nearly dropped her mug. Her left hand went to her temple as he reached across the table and gently took the mug of lukewarm tea from her right hand.

"What's wrong?" he whispered in a concerned voice. T'Pol took a deep breath and rubbed her temple in a circular motion with her eyes closed.

"I'm not sure," she told him rather shakily. He watched her for a moment with a worried expression. She opened her eyes and dropped her hand. Her control had returned. "It has passed. I am fine," she told him calmly.

He exhaled in frustration and stuck his tongue in cheek. Then he pushed back from the table. "Come with me," he told her in a voice that brooked no argument. "We're gonna see Phlox right _now_." He stood up and waited there with his arms crossed. She looked up at him, raised a brow, and then stood up and preceded him out of the mess hall.

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_It was warm and dark and cozy where she was hiding. She could curl up in a tiny ball, and they'd never find her. Then she'd win the game. No one was better at hide-and-seek than she was._

"_My mind to your mind…"_

_Someone was out there. A girl. Since when did Fritz and Arnie have a girl on their side? That wasn't fair!_

"_My thoughts to your thoughts…"_

_She squeezed herself tighter still. She wasn't sure why, but she knew that it was very important that she not be found._

"_Our minds are merging…"_

_It was suddenly scary there, alone in the dark. She felt something searching for her… something alien. _

"_Fritz… is that you?" she whispered hesitantly. Her oldest brother was always trying to scare her. He was such a dufus. It hadn't worked since she was way younger. Now that she was eight, nothing scared her anymore._

"_Our minds are one…"_

_Abruptly, a palm-sized, insubstantial ball of glowing light appeared in front of her. In the center of the ball floated a tiny, winged girl no more than two inches tall. She had wispy auburn curls tumbling from the crown of her head right down to the bases of her silver filigreed wings, a filmy green, leafy garment which barely covered her, and teeny-tiny little pointed ears._

"_It's time to come out now, Janice. The game is over," said the sprite in a voice so high-pitched it was barely audible. She placed a hand at her throat with a startled look, as if surprised by the sound of her own voice._

_Janice Hess smiled a delighted smile and reached out toward her visitor._

"_You're a faerie!" she exclaimed, extending a finger to touch the wings that fluttered before her eyes. The tiny being regarded her soberly, looked down at herself with a resigned expression, and then raised an ironic brow._

"_Apparently so," she squeaked dryly. The pixie lit on the finger that Janice had extended toward her. Her wings stilled. Her tiny eyes seemed to draw Janice's gaze._

"_You must trust me," said the faerie soberly. "I am here to help you… but in order for me to do so, you must come out."_

_Janice grinned mischievously. "Can you make me invisible so I can hide in plain sight?" she asked._

_The faerie looked taken aback for a moment, and then replied regretfully, "I cannot… but I can teach you skills which will make hiding unnecessary."_

_Young Janice cocked her head at that, considering her options. Then she grinned at the faerie. "Let's go, then!" she said eagerly. She rose to her feet and took a step… and then she remembered._

_His mind was vicious and cold… precise and yet somehow fragmented. She sensed his enjoyment of the pain he was causing with his mental vivisection, as well as the overwhelming shame and guilt he seemed to be simultaneously experiencing. Curiously, he seemed to enjoy that, too. He flayed open her mind layer by layer, searching for the kernel of information his employers would pay very handsomely to obtain. With each successive invasion, she ran from him in barely controlled panic, retreating farther and farther inward. Before she reached the final bastion, she felt a familiar presence within her mind, bolstering her strength and preventing her total retreat._

"_It's all right, Janice… it's only a memory. You are quite safe," said the presence soothingly._

_Janice's mind fastened on to that presence like a lifeline, opening to it completely, trustingly, like the child she'd been only moments before. She sensed startlement from her rescuer at her rapid acquiescence. Whoever the presence was, it had expected Janice to resist. Instead, the panicked child that was all that was left of Janice's conscious mind recognized her faerie guide and devoted every ounce of mental energy at her disposal to a frantic grasp at her protector. The union that resulted was completely unexpected. _

… _a face on a comm screen smiled at her. "Hi, Honey bunny!" She grinned back with infantile unselfconsciousness and reached for the face of... Commander Tucker? No… Sa-mekh… Daddy…_

… _a hugely muscled young man with closely cropped blonde hair and a deep golden tan held her at arm's length in midair with an indulgent smile on his face as she ferociously swung both arms at him, slapping vainly at his tree-trunk sized forearm._

"_Let me down, Fritz!"_

_The young man laughed a deep rumbling belly laugh. "Close your fists, you wimp!" he teased her. She swung a sneaker clad foot up and kicked him soundly on the chin…_

… _the huge sehlat rumbled beneath her as she buried her face in its thick, dusty fur. She was safe here. The bombs had stopped. _

"_T'Mir? Where are you?" cried her mother's voice. She sounded distressed… more distressed than T'Mir had ever heard. T'Mir rose from the rubble and was immediately faced with the distraught and dusty face of… Commander T'Pol? _

_No… her ko-mekh gathered her in with urgent arms. They held her securely. "I thought you'd been killed," whispered her mother hoarsely. T'Mir grasped her firmly in return. "I am uninjured," she whispered back, and rested her head on her mother's chest. The arms stayed securely around her…_

… _she looked up, and __**up**__ into warm liquid brown eyes. His smile melted her insides. His arms lifted her from the ground as if she weighed nothing. He wrapped her in an embrace, so close that she could feel his heart beating in his chest. _

"_Mi belleza…" he breathed into her ear, and then his lips found hers…_

… _she held her mother's still form in her arms, pillowed on her lap. Emerald green blood stained her clothing and the sand around her knees. Tears streamed down her cheeks. Locked in a final attempt at a healing meld, she felt her mother's katra slipping away. There was no time… She struggled to find the remaining wisps of thought, and followed them into the darkness…_

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"Agent T'Mir!" Phlox's palm struck her face with considerable force for the third time, knocking her head back strongly enough to give whiplash to a human. T'Mir's eyes flew open. Her left hand left Hess' temple and caught the doctor's wrist in full swing, stopping it cold.

"That will be sufficient, Doctor. The meld is over," she told him firmly, shaking her head to clear it in the process. She released Phlox's wrist and fingered her jaw gingerly. He'd been a bit too enthusiastic in complying with her request for assistance in the event of an overlong meld, she decided. Phlox rubbed his wrist as if to encourage circulation and eyed her expectantly as she sat collecting her wits next to the lieutenant commander's biobed. Both of them jumped at the sound of a raspy whisper coming from the occupant of the bed.

"You're real," marveled Hess with a startled expression and a broad smile. Her green eyes were focused on T'Mir. "I thought I dreamed you… you were the f…"

"Yes, Lieutenant Commander," interrupted T'Mir hastily. "I am real. I entered the reality that your mind had constructed for protection in order to bring you to consciousness. You will recover now," she reassured the human engineer.

Hess looked in puzzlement from the doctor to T'Mir and back again. "What happened, exactly?" she asked tentatively. "The last thing I remember is that sadistic bastard reaching for my temples…," she looked back at T'Mir, "… and then you were fluttering there with your little wings…"

Phlox's lips quirked upward and he raised a brow in interest. "Wings?" he asked in amused fascination. T'Mir rolled her eyes.

"I am T'Mir, Lieutenant Commander. I am a Vulcan," she told Hess firmly. "Anything else you saw was a construct of your own imagination."

Hess' eyes narrowed. T'Mir had the distinct impression that there would soon be questions asked that she had no intention of answering. She returned Hess' gaze soberly. There was no way to determine how much the woman remembered of their inadvertent mental union without asking her directly, and she was still too weak and confused to be interrogated.

Hess and T'Mir stared at each other in silence. Then Hess extended her left hand, evidently noticing that her rescuer's right one was incapacitated. T'Mir's gaze dropped to the woman's square and blunt-fingered extremity for a second, and then she belatedly realized her intent. She grasped it firmly with her own left hand. The woman's grip was equally firm.

"It's very nice to meet you, T'Mir. Thanks for pulling my ass out of the fire," said Hess with a wry smile. "Please call me Janice."

T'Mir gave the human engineer a polite nod, and had opened her mouth to respond to the woman's pleasantries when Commanders Tucker and T'Pol, the two persons whose simultaneous presence she had thus far been most careful to avoid during her stay on _Enterprise_, walked through the Sickbay doors. Commander Tucker actually had his hand around Commander T'Pol's right upper arm and was ushering her in front of him like an instructor escorting an errant schoolgirl to the office of the disciplinarian.

T'Mir stared at the two of them as they approached the doctor, holding her breath, suddenly deathly afraid of what they would say… of what they'd discovered somehow. Phlox stepped away from the lieutenant commander's biobed to meet the two commanders. The three of them moved to the far side of Sickbay and stood shoulder to shoulder in intense conversation, whispering so quietly while doing so that even T'Mir was unable to hear what they were saying. Her eyes followed their every move. T'Mir had met this timeline's T'Pol and had come to terms with the fact that, although she greatly resembled the woman who had given up her career and her life to protect an unexpected daughter, this T'Pol's life had taken a different turn, and this woman was not her mother. Commander Tucker's dark blonde curls brought back painful memories, however. She hadn't really had the opportunity to speak with him since she'd arrived. She'd thought herself grown, mature, and immune to such feelings, but seeing him now made her remember how she'd always run to him shouting "Sa-mekh! Daddy!" each time he'd come to visit… and how her mother had never chided her about smiling and laughing when he arrived. She knew intellectually that he was not her father, but her heart still believed otherwise.

_This man is not my father. My father died at Cheron_, she told herself firmly… and continued repeating it in the hope that she would eventually come to believe it.

########################

T'Pol kept careful outward control as Trip marched her toward Sickbay, but inwardly her mind was reeling. Until the incident a few moments before at the breakfast table, she'd considered her efforts thus far to wean herself from Trip's mental assistance to be an unqualified success. Although she really hadn't gotten any sleep per se the night before, she had managed to reach a meditative state for a large portion of the night, and she'd been able to maintain her barriers with him at breakfast despite her unexpectedly intense craving to communicate with him. It was almost as if his mental presence was a drug to which she had now become addicted. She was determined to break that addiction and transform it into something healthier for both of them. She'd thought she was succeeding until the episode of intense headache and disorientation that she'd just experienced in the mess hall. Strangely, the flash of images that had assailed her had had nothing to do with Trip… at least not the Trip that she knew. She'd seen images of a man who resembled Trip, but the feelings associated with those images had been unfamiliar.

_Sa-mekh_, she thought. The thought made no sense. Her father had borne absolutely no physical resemblance to the man she'd married. There had been flashes of family interaction… a brother perhaps? She had none. A human lover with deep brown eyes had embraced her, speaking a language she vaguely recognized from her time in San Francisco but could not understand. Trip was her only lover… and certainly was the only human who had ever embraced her in that fashion. There had been other, more disturbing images as well… images of death… but the face of the dead woman had been her own. And then she'd seen the face of Tolaris for some reason, and the shock of having the sudden image in her head had nearly caused her to drop her tea.

T'Pol came to herself as Trip led her through the doors of Sickbay by one arm. His face was grimly determined, as if he expected resistance from her. She gave none. Trip marched her toward Phlox. The doctor left his patient's bedside to join them. T'Pol distantly noted that Lieutenant Commander Hess was conscious and sitting up in bed, and that the young Vulcan/Human temporal agent was at her bedside, gripping her hand. Then Trip reached Phlox and pulled him aside, all the while maintaining a firm grip on her upper arm as if he were afraid that she'd attempt escape.

"There's somethin' wrong with her, Doc," Trip whispered fiercely. "She keeps tellin' me she's fine, but I don't believe her. She nearly passed out in the mess hall a few minutes ago!"

Phlox turned to T'Pol with an inquiring look. She regarded him blandly.

"I was unable to sleep last night," she admitted, "… but Vulcans can go without sleep for days."

Phlox exhaled, and shook his head in frustration as he led them toward an empty biobed. "_Healthy_ Vulcans can go without sleep for days, Commander," he clarified. He indicated that she should have a seat on the bed. She complied without argument.

"You, on the other hand, are not entirely healthy… and sleep deprivation can have a detrimental effect on brain chemistry," he added as he scanned her head. He paused as he absorbed the readings he was getting, and then looked up to meet her eyes squarely.

"I thought we'd both agreed that mind melds were too risky right now," he said reprovingly. Both Trip and T'Pol gave him confused looks.

"We didn't, Doc. I swear!" insisted Trip.

Phlox cocked his head at them dubiously. "My readings clearly show increased activity in the telepathic center of Commander T'Pol's brain too intense to be anything but a recent mind meld," he told them. Then he paused, staring at the two of them with a puzzled expression. His eyes widened then, and then his gaze traveled past the two of them to fix themselves on a point behind T'Pol's left shoulder. She turned to follow his gaze and found herself looking directly into the vividly blue eyes of a very frightened looking young woman.

_What is she afraid of?_ wondered T'Pol.

"Can the effect of a mind meld be exerted at a distance?" asked Phlox in a seeming non-sequitor. T'Pol blinked, and then turned back to him.

"I don't believe so," she told him, "… although telepathic communication at a distance does occasionally occur between unbonded Vulcans at times of great emotional stress. Why do you ask?"

Phlox hesitated for a moment. "This is a matter of ship's security. As First Officer, you should know… and you have the right to know for personal reasons as well. Commander Tucker is not directly involved, however…" he fished delicately for a way to ask her whether she preferred to hear what he had to say confidentially.

She faced him squarely. "You may say anything in the presence of my husband, Doctor," she told him. Trip crossed his arms and glared at the doctor.

"The Captain thought it best not to tell you until we had confirmation of Lieutenant Commander Hess' recovery. He thought the news might be traumatic for you," said Phlox a bit apologetically.

T'Pol raised a brow, but refrained from expressing her opinion regarding Jonathan Archer's overprotectiveness. "Go on," she said.

"Hess' condition was caused by a forced mind meld. The Romulan agent who attacked Hess was Tolaris. Agent T'Mir just performed a healing meld and woke her from her comatose state," Phlox told her, all in one breath, and then held his breath waiting for her response. Instead, she simply stood there with her jaw clenched, attempting to regain control before speaking. Trip had no such difficulty.

"Tolaris?" he said in a puzzled voice. "Isn't that the slimy guy from Kov's ship that the captain took exception to?" His gaze shifted back and forth from T'Pol's impassive face to Phlox's guarded expression.

"I never quite understood why he kicked the guy off the ship… but I guess he turned out to be a pretty good judge of character if the sonofabitch was a Romulan agent," said Trip with a questioning smile.

Phlox looked sidelong at T'Pol. She remained silent. Her wide-eyed gaze was fixed on her husband. "Commander?" he prompted.

"Leave us, please, Doctor," said T'Pol calmly. Her gaze didn't waver from Trip's face. "My husband and I have something to discuss."

Phlox glanced dubiously from one of them to the other, but they ignored him. Finally, he simply stepped back and closed the privacy curtain, leaving them staring silently at each other.

########################

Centurion Arrhae stood at attention in the shuttle bay of the warbird _Ra'kholh_, at the head of a five man formation of security officers in armored red EV suits with their helmets held under their left arms. Subcommander Arek stood pompously before them. He was delivering a speech. Again.

"Every effort must be taken to take the fugitive alive so that he may be properly punished for his crimes against the Empire," he announced, standing with both of his hands clasped behind his back and his nose in the air. "You six are the weapons chosen by the Praetor to perform this task. You will bring honor to yourselves, your families, your ship, and your people with its successful completion. Honor to the Empire!" His right fist, tightly clenched, crossed over his chest and struck his left shoulder a solid blow.

Arrhae returned the gesture enthusiastically and with a straight face, thinking,_ I take it back. Nei'rrh wasn't so bad. He was an idiot, that much is true, but at least he wasn't a __**pompous**__ idiot. _

Their former commanding officer, while confined to his quarters by order of the Praetor, had chosen to end his own life rather than return to Romulus in disgrace. He'd been found in his quarters that morning, dead by his own hand. Arrhae pitied him. The son of a fifth generation military family with ties to the ruling houses, Nei'rrh been groomed from birth for military command, but had never seemed comfortable in uniform. In Arrhae's opinion, the man would have been better suited to being an historian, or something else equally impractical which didn't require common sense. Arek, on the other hand, thus far seemed to be reveling in his new command, perhaps too much.

Subcommander Arek lowered his fist, releasing the security detail from their rigid posture and finally allowing them to get on with their mission. Arrhae followed his men into the only shuttle on board still operable by a hand at the helm and shut the hatch firmly behind them.

"Set a course for _Kreptagh_ Prime," he said to the pilot. "Ignore any incoming hails, and set us down on the grounds of the detention facility."

#######################

Trip stood at T'Pol's side where she sat on the biobed, waiting for her to say something. Despite her request to Phlox that he leave the two of them alone to "discuss" something, she seemed to be very reluctant to say anything. All this talk of Tolaris had started to worry him. T'Pol had seemed to be getting pretty close to the guy while the Vulcan ship had been traveling with them a couple of years back. There had even been some rumors about the two of them being an item. Had Tolaris done something to her, and was that why Jon had booted him off the ship? If that was true, he owed Jon a huge favor. It concerned him that she hadn't ever told him about it, though. He swallowed and steeled himself. _I guess I haven't really gone into detail about all of my old lovers either_, he thought, with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. _It sounds like things didn't end well between the two of them… and no wonder, if the slimeball was a Romulan agent_.

It was water under the bridge now, he decided. The two of them were married, and T'Pol had just as much right to disastrous previous relationships as he did. He smiled at her, attempting to lighten the mood. "Any time now is fine, darlin'. It's 0750. We're supposed to be on duty in ten minutes," he prompted teasingly.

T'Pol didn't seem reassured. Her eyes darted to her husband's briefly before returning to focus themselves on the featureless folds of the privacy curtain over his right shoulder.

"I had considered this issue closed and resolved. Forgive me if I have difficulty dredging it up again," she told him stoically. She inhaled, and then exhaled heavily, executing a breathing technique that Trip recognized from their neuropressure sessions as an attempt to calm herself. She still refused to make eye contact.

"As we have little time, I will attempt to be brief," she told him. "I have always had difficulty with emotional control. My father once told me that this was a personality trait that he and I shared. For me, emotional control has always seemed to require greater effort than for the average Vulcan, or at least it seemed so from my point of view. Although I was disgusted by many of the practices espoused by the V'tosh Katur…"

Trip smiled a little at that. He clearly remembered the expression on her face when Captain Tavin had eaten chicken in her presence. Disgust was an understatement.

"… I did find the concept of an alternate way to deal with emotion an intriguing one," she admitted.

Trip lifted a hand and grasped hers lightly. She met his eyes finally, squeezing his fingers. He smiled encouragingly. "So… you were curious," he told her. "Nothin' wrong with that."

She continued to look him in the eyes as she went on. "From the moment that we met, Tolaris challenged my preconceptions about emotions and emotional control. He seemed knowledgeable about the methods the V'tosh Katur were using, and encouraged me to discontinue meditation in order to begin to experience the emotions that I had been suppressing." She swallowed. "I did so, and began to experience disturbing dreams."

"Nightmares?" asked Trip curiously.

She raised a considering brow. "Not exactly," she replied hesitantly. "The dreams were very… sensual in nature. They featured Tolaris and me in… certain situations which…"

Trip raised a hand and grinned uncomfortably. "Okay… I get it… never mind," he said hastily.

She flushed a bright green and looked away again. "I felt overwhelmed by the emotions that I was experiencing, and when he offered to teach me to channel them the way the V'tosh Katur did… by sharing them through a mind meld… I was willing to try anything," she admitted.

"You melded with him?" asked Trip in disbelief. It was worse than he'd thought. Sex… well… that he could handle. He'd done it himself after all… but the idea that she'd share her most intimate thoughts with a near stranger after a mere day or two of acquaintance… It made him sick to his stomach.

"I allowed him to attempt the meld…" she told him shakily. Her eyes were focused on the privacy curtain again. They were huge, and moist with impending tears. "…but when our minds touched, I realized that he'd been lying to me. The meld was not an attempt to teach me about the methods of the V'tosh Katur. Tolaris had just used the excuse to convince me to drop my control so that he could experience my emotions. Melds among the V'tosh Katur are a sacred ritual. Tolaris used my inexperience to twist our meld into something else… something obscene. He enjoyed my pain… He reveled in inflicting it and fed his madness by experiencing it. When I attempted to break free of him, he refused to release me. The forcible nature of the meld damaged the telepathic centers of my brain."

Trip's nausea rapidly transformed itself into anger. The bastard had _forced_ her! He studied her face. She looked like a lost child. Every bit of his disgust over her behavior vanished in a wave of protectiveness and love. Tolaris had deceived her. All she'd wanted was for him to help her, and instead, he'd betrayed her. He reached out with his opposite hand, still gripping her hand in his with the other, and turned her chin toward him, meeting her eyes. Even with her barriers up, her shame was palpable.

"You had no way of knowing that he wasn't telling you the truth, T'Pol," he whispered softly. His lips turned up in a sad, understanding smile. "I'm sorry I wasn't there to protect you, but I promise… I'll never let him hurt you again."

A single tear spilled over from each eye, traveling in wavering lines down her cheeks. He stepped forward and took her into his arms, holding her securely against his chest. His eyes were moist, but his face was determined. The bastard had hurt her. He was gonna pay for that.

#######################

"Dammit, Jon! I _insist_ on goin' down there. I have the _right_ to go down there!" shouted Trip Tucker. He was so furious that he no longer thought of the man in front of him as his captain. He was much more than that. He was a friend who'd betrayed him by keeping vital information from him. They were alone in Jonathan Archer's quarters. Archer was dressed in the unfamiliar black uniform of the _Kreptagh_ Prime Security Force, preparing for the away mission scheduled to begin in less than an hour.

"It's not your job, Trip. You're an engineer, not a security officer," replied Archer, attempting to reason with him. "I wouldn't even be going, except that I don't want Elena to have to go through this without me. Let Malcolm do his job."

"That piece of shit Tolaris _raped_ my wife, Jon. I have the _right_ to help with his capture!" insisted Trip, getting right in Archer's face to plead his case. Archer gave him a rueful smile.

"I know you're mad, Trip… I should have told you before this, I know… but T'Pol asked me not to…"

The bell to Archer's quarters sounded, causing both men to fall silent. Archer stared at his friend for a second, then stepped back to an acceptable social distance with his eyes still fixed apologetically on Trip's, straightened his jacket, and called, "Come in."

Gary Seven entered the cabin. He nodded at Trip briefly before getting right to the point.

"There will need to be a change of plan, Captain," said Seven briskly. He pulled a padd out and turned it around to show it to Archer. "I found this floorplan of the recent detention center renovations after our meeting earlier this morning," he said. He tapped the screen with a forefinger. "They've installed a more up to date scanner arch similar to the one at the medical center. This one's also capable of DNA scans. Lieutenant Commander Reed, Agent T'Mir, and yourself have all been DNA scanned previously on _Kreptagh_ and are in the Security Department's computer system as registered slaves. Lieutenant Sato and I are the only members of the original landing party who won't set off alarms when we walk through that arch."

"I'm going on this mission, Seven," Archer insisted.

Seven raised his hand placatingly. "I didn't say you weren't, Captain. We'll simply need to find someone else to wear that uniform you have on and be our inside man at the detention center. That will leave you free to accompany your wife to the treatment room of the medical center. Isn't that what you'd actually prefer? You told me you didn't like the idea of her going in there without you."

Archer raised a brow and nodded at Seven in acquiescence.

"I volunteer to be the inside man at the detention center," interjected Trip determinedly. "There's no reason for me not to go. Rostov can handle Engineering, and from the sound of things, you need me."

"I'd rather use a trained security officer, Trip," protested Archer. "You're too important for us to lose."

"And you're not?" countered Trip in an exasperated tone.

"All right, boys… play nice," said Seven wryly. He pulled up schematics on the sensor arch.

"Commander Tucker, if you could get access to this sensor arch, could you reprogram it to allow Lieutenant Commander Reed to enter with his team without setting off the alarms?" asked Seven. Trip took the padd from him and studied it intently.

"I should be able to do something with it," he told the agent finally, nodding as he handed the padd back to Seven.

Seven raised a brow and looked at Archer expectantly. Archer exhaled heavily, shaking his head, and began to unbutton the jacket of the security force uniform he was wearing. Trip immediately began to strip down to his regulation blues.

"I just know I'm going to regret this," Archer muttered to himself. He shrugged out of the jacket, handed it to Trip, and then started working on the shirt.

"We_ capture_ Tolaris, Trip… is that understood?" he said sternly, making eye contact with his friend, who stood now in undershirt and shorts waiting impatiently for the rest of his uniform. Trip gave him an exaggeratedly innocent look.

"Of course, Jon!" he reassured him with a smile which failed to reach his eyes. He shrugged into the shirt his friend handed to him while Archer lifted a foot to remove the uniform pants. "I'll take _real_ good care of the bastard. Just you wait and see."

########################

He woke to the sound of klaxons. He didn't know the day or the time. Time measurements required some form of outside reference, and he was long past the point where anything outside of his own head held any meaning for him.

_They're coming for me_, he realized.

The idea should have terrified him. He'd failed them, after all. He knew the penalty for failure. He hadn't even managed to crack the human bitch's instinctive defenses to get the engineering information they wanted. He'd gotten what _he_ wanted, though… what he _needed_. Her fear had been invigorating, but he'd experienced fear before. It helped to stave off the overwhelming _need_ that drove him to meld, but it wasn't what he craved. Anger was what sustained him now. When she'd fought him… when she'd _hated_ him… it fed him like no food would ever do. The psychiatrists on Vulcan had told him that the feeling was a delusion… that he enjoyed the hatred because it confirmed and bolstered his hatred of himself. They'd insisted that he didn't need the melds… that stopping them would do him no real harm. They didn't understand. The hatred kept him going. He didn't deserve to live… but then, dying was too easy. _Suffering_ was the key. He lived to suffer… to experience suffering, and if he had to inflict it in order to experience it, then so be it.

Melds left no visible bruises… killed no one. They were the best way, but not the only way. He'd had to find some means of experiencing pain at regular intervals for as long as he could remember. The voices in his head insisted on it. It had been that way for years. He'd go for months without needing the pain. Then it would begin. The voices would tell him it was time. When he was younger, he'd tried self-starvation, self-mutilation… he still had the scars on his arms from all the cuts he'd inflicted. His parents would bring him to the healers. He'd tell them about his need for pain… that it focused him… that he _enjoyed_ it… but not about the voices, never about the voices. Then Tavin had found him. The lifestyle of the V'Tosh Katur drew him like a sehlat to water. The first time he'd melded in the Ceremony of Acceptance he'd felt like he truly belonged somewhere for the first time in his life. And then the voices had returned. He discovered that experiencing the pain of others in the meld gave him respite from the voices. When his meld partners were willing participants, the sharing of distressing emotions actually helped them to cope. At first, that had been enough… until she had fought him, and he'd experienced a forced meld for the first time. Her pain had been excruciating… exhilarating… and completely irresistible.

_T'Pol of Vulcan… Subcommander T'Pol_, he thought in fond remembrance. His lips curved upward in a smile. His meld with her had kept the voices at bay for nearly a year. He'd grown accustomed to being with Tavin and his crew during that time. He'd come to trust them completely, and when the voices returned, he'd made a fateful error. He'd told Tavin about the voices, and Tavin had betrayed him. Oh, he'd _said_ that he was going back to Vulcan for Tolaris' benefit. He'd _said_ that Tolaris was like a son to him, and he'd even paid for the so-called treatment… but it had all been a lie, of course. Everything anyone said to him now was a lie. He'd grown to realize that in the hospital, and it was only after he'd started to return their lies with lies of his own that they pronounced him cured and let him out. The Romulan agent had found him shortly afterwards. She had lied to him as well, but at least the lies were new ones.

He rolled over in the bed and sat up with his legs over the side and his feet firmly planted on the floor. The klaxon continued, and he heard the sound of feet pounding down the hallway past his cell door. It was almost time.

########################

_Kreptagh Prime Regional Industrial Medical Center Residential Complex, Apartment 27 0830 local time_

"Trog! Wake up! You'll be late for your shift!"

Nok shook his business partner firmly by the shoulder. The small-lobed idiot just groaned and pulled the covers over his head, leaving Nok staring impotently at the top of his nearly bald and bulbous head. Apparently, Romulan ale didn't agree with him.

"I'm claiming your payment for this shift if I have to go in for you again," warned Nok.

"Go ahead… I don't care. If I get up now, my head will explode, and I'll die," insisted Trog in a painful whisper from beneath the covers, "… and 'You can't make a deal if you're dead'."

"'Rule of Acquisition' number 125," responded Nok automatically, with the air of someone performing a ritual so frequently done that it had become instinctive. Then he exhaled heavily. He hated going in for Trog. Trog preferred embryo transfer, and so his shifts were usually done in the treatment room. Nok knew how to operate the equipment, of course, but crying females gave him a headache. He much preferred the delivery suite, where he could sedate the females into a state of relaxed and happy cooperation. Sedating the embryo transfer patients resulted in reduced embryo survival, however, and so they took pains not to do so. The embryos were a valuable commodity… so valuable that he and Trog had taken to claiming the occasional accidental destruction of an embryo or two so that they could make their own transactions to supplement the less-than-generous salary that the hospital was paying them. They had almost collected enough capital to get off this rock, with the ship of Nok's wet dreams in the bargain. The deal with the Romulan agent had almost been the best one yet. It was really a shame that the fellow had tried to steal the embryos rather than pay for them and had gotten arrested in the process. He rather admired the Vulcan's audacity. He had yet to figure out where the clever fellow had hidden his stolen property before being carted off to the lockup.

Nok had almost forgiven Trog for spending all of their investment capital on the strange transporter device the Suliban had insisted was the solution to all of their financial woes. They'd marketed it to the hospital by masquerading as physicians. Fortunately, since no one else knew how to operate the device and the Suliban had at least given them rudimentary instruction before disappearing with virtually all of their latinum, they were rarely required to do anything else. The one exception was in the delivery suite. Nok had found that the best strategy was to let the nurses do it all, and then simply stand at the foot of the bed with gloves on and catch. He'd grown to enjoy the rather messy experience, and it certainly was lucrative. There had been a few unfortunate outcomes, but thus far, no one had died on his shift. That would be distressing, of course, as he'd have to reimburse the slaveowner from his own pocket for the value of his losses. For that reason, Nok had made it his business to read up on proper care of the birthing female, and always listened to the nurses when they recommended a course of action. After three months of practice, he felt like he was finally getting good at it, and his touch on the surgical transporter was nothing short of miraculous… or at least_ he_ thought so.

Nok shook his head. "All right, Trog… I'll go in for you… but you need to toughen up, my friend. Remember, 'No lobes, no profit'… rule 262." He grinned a spiky-toothed grin which was transformed into a startled expression as he dematerialized in a fuzzy cloud of particles. Then there was silence.

Trog poked his head out from under the covers after a moment. "Nok?"

He looked around him with a puzzled expression on his bulbous-nosed face, and then shrugged and threw the covers back over his head.

########################

Janice Hess sat side by side with Elena Archer on one of the rear bunks in Shuttlepod Two, now masquerading once again as the good ship _Dominatrix_. She was dressed, as was Elena, in a comfortable Starfleet issue sweat suit without insignia. Each woman held a small black stasis case securely on her lap. Hess curled her legs up on the bunk to get them out of the way, and sat back to watch the fascinating interaction of all of the players in Agent Seven's well coordinated performance. She eyed Elena with a smile.

"Do you know what's going on?" she murmured softly. Her eyes followed a very flamboyantly dressed Hoshi Sato, who was on the comm communicating with someone from _Kreptagh_ Spaceport Port Authority about an authorization to remain in low orbit around the planet.

Elena raised a brow with a grin and shrugged. "Don't ask me. I slept through most of the planning stages," she replied. "I hear Agent T'Mir gave _you_ a wake up call, though," she teased.

"I'm a sound sleeper," returned Janice with flippant evasiveness. She turned her eyes back to the activities in front of her, but she wasn't paying attention to them anymore. Her thoughts returned to the meld. The girl had saved both her life and her sanity. Janice owed her big time. At the same time, Trip Tucker had saved everyone in his department innumerable times. She owed him even more, and keeping what she'd discovered about T'Mir's parentage to herself was tantamount to betraying him. The man treated his entire staff like they were family. He was a truly sincere and good human being. How could she possibly keep the existence of a living daughter from him… even one from another timeline? Commander T'Pol was another issue altogether. Janice couldn't honestly see her caring one way or the other. Everything she'd seen of their cold and emotionless Vulcan First Officer pointed toward her treating T'Mir as simply the interesting result of a time experiment gone wrong, but T'Pol was, genetically at least, the girl's mother, and her counterpart had apparently given her life for her daughter. Janice wasn't sure whether this timeline's T'Pol would feel the same way, but a woman had the right to know her own child.

Lieutenant Commander Reed's voice came over the comm. "_Cat O' Nine_ to _Dominatrix_. Have they given us clearance to remain in orbit?"

"That's an affirmative, _Cat O' Nine_," responded Hoshi to Shuttlepod One. "I have informed them that our two ships will enter _Kreptagh_ orbit together or not at all. They seem eager to trade."

"I await your orders, then, Mistress," answered Malcolm ironically.

Elena's brow went up, and she exchanged an amused glance with Janice. The two of them bit back laughter as the sound of an arriving matter transport filled the small vehicle. A short, ugly and very frightened appearing big-eared alien materialized inside the barred holding cell on top of the makeshift transporter pad that Commander Tucker and his assistants had recently installed in the rear of the shuttle. Janice recognized his species. He was Ferengi. She couldn't tell if he was the one that had taken her child or not. They all looked alike to her.

"Got him! It works!" announced Seven triumphantly. Archer looked back to the navigation… and temporary transport control… station from where he sat at helm and gave the temporal agent a reproving look.

"What?" demanded Seven defensively. "I didn't have time to test this jury rig. Did you _want_ to test it for the first time on one of ours?" Archer grinned and shook his head. Then his expression sobered as he looked at the Ferengi in his cage. Hess could see his jaw clench. She glanced at Elena. Her friend's eyes were focused on her husband in sympathy.

"He wants to kill that Ferengi," Elena whispered.

"I don't blame him," Hess retorted, "…but he won't, because he knows we need the little shit."

Lieutenant Hoshi Sato, resplendent in black leather and red satin in her Mistress Sato persona, rose from the copilot's chair and approached the cage. Isis, who'd been perched on the navigation station's control console watching Agent Seven work the transporter controls, jumped down and joined her on the floor as she made her approach. The two of them appeared to be cut from the same slinky cloth, moving sinuously in unison with identically predatory expressions. Hoshi stopped about a meter from the cage and fixed the Ferengi with a dominant stare. The ugly little man's eyes widened. Then Hoshi pulled out a phase pistol, pointed it directly at the Ferengi's head, and uttered a single sentence in a nasally guttural language that was as ugly as the species from which it originated. The Ferengi stared at her in complete shock for a moment, and then fell groveling to the floor, flat on his belly. She looked down on him in contempt, and then announced to the cabin in general, "He'll cooperate as long as I can keep him convinced that I'm perfectly willing to kill him on a whim." Her tone was flat and totally serious. Hess wondered what Hoshi had said to him, and then reconsidered. It was probably best that she didn't know, she decided.

#######################

Commander Trip Tucker sat as copilot in Shuttlepod One, now temporarily christened _Cat O' Nine_ by their Chief of Security, who was busy at the navigation station studying real time sensor images of the detention center that they were preparing to infiltrate.

_How the hell did Malcolm come up with these names?_ he wondered. He didn't have to wonder, though. He knew that Hoshi had been Malcolm's inspiration. Sometimes the creative nature of Malcolm's relationship with their supposedly shy and modest communications officer made him scratch his head. They seemed to be happy with all of their role playing, though, and were never less than completely professional while on duty. Until this mission had forced them to out themselves, Trip seriously doubted that anyone on board save he and T'Pol… and perhaps the quartermaster… had had the slightest idea of what was going on behind closed doors between two of his closest friends. Their penchant for varied costumes and equally varied activities was a secret source of amusement to him. Both of them were just so bland and straight-laced while on duty. It tickled him to think that they had an outlet for their more outlandish urges in each other. After his last night with T'Pol, though, he found himself feeling something he'd not felt before… envy. He missed being able to just cut loose and play. He'd decided to be patient, though. If Phlox's treatment was successful, then T'Pol had promised to drop her barriers, and playtime could begin again… or at least he sincerely hoped so.

Trip eyed Agent T'Mir as she transferred control to the autopilot now that the shuttle had reached a stable orbit. She'd handled the yoke admirably with one hand, and no one had disputed her when she'd announced her plans to pilot the shuttle and remain on board to coordinate the strike from orbit. As she had quite logically pointed out from the outset, a one-handed team member was a liability in a combat situation. She was, however, perfectly capable of piloting a shuttle one handed, and there was nothing wrong with her brain. Her useless right forearm was strapped to her chest to get it out of the way. Trip doubted that someone unfamiliar with the subtle nuances of Vulcan expression would have been able to see the pain on her face, but her discomfort was obvious to him. It must have been her youth and her uncanny resemblance to T'Pol that caused the sudden pang of protectiveness he felt.

"Would you like me to get you something from the med kit?" he murmured almost inaudibly. She raised a brow, not looking at him, and shook her head fractionally as she worked.

"No. I am fine," she whispered back.

_She's just as stubborn as T'Pol, too,_ thought Trip in resignation. He eyed her critically. The color of her eyes was familiar to him somehow. He sat back in his chair and thought back on what Phlox had told them in Sickbay that morning. They'd been so focused on Tolaris that the implications hadn't sunk in until now. Was she actually capable of mind melds at a distance, or was it a special instance of T'Pol being unusually sensitive to her for some unknown reason? What little he knew of mind melds had come from T'Pol, who'd as much as admitted to him that she knew practically nothing about the subject herself, but he'd always thought that touch was necessary for mental communication between Vulcans, except in the case of bonded couples… _Or close family members in times of severe stress…, _he recalled suddenly. T'Pol had told him of her link with her mother that had enabled her to locate T'Les in the rubble as she lay dying.

"This Romulan agent… your captain said that _Enterprise_ has come in contact with him previously," whispered T'Mir. Trip blinked and came back to the present. He turned back to T'Mir, wondering why she hadn't discussed the subject with the captain, who knew much more about it than he did, Trip was certain. Trip was still angry with his friend and captain for keeping the information from him.

"He's V'tosh Katur," replied Trip briefly. "He's also a sadistic bastard who deserves everything he's gonna get when we catch him… and probably much more if I know Starfleet Command. They're gonna treat him _much_ better than I ever would."

T'Mir eyed Trip's grimly furious expression and raised a brow. "This anger you feel toward him… is it because of what he did to your subordinate and friend, Lieutenant Commander Hess?" she asked.

Trip exhaled, attempting a calming meditative technique. _I guess I'd better chill_, he thought. _Gettin' all worked up won't help me do this_.

"Some of it," he admitted, "…But Tolaris and I have old business to settle. I owe him a world of hurt for hurtin' someone I love."

T'Mir's eyes widened, "He's the one… her Pa'nar syndrome!" she murmured to herself.

Trip cocked his head at her suspiciously. _I'll be damned! She knows about T'Pol!_

"And how the heck do you know about that? I just found out about it this morning!"

T'Mir's eyes shifted. "I didn't. Commander T'Pol's service record, in my time a publicly accessible historical document, details the presence of a neurologic disorder, initially diagnosed as Pa'nar syndrome, which was then mysteriously cured during a trip to Vulcan and never mentioned again. This condition is well known in my time to be the result of improper melding technique. From the information you just gave me, I deduced the cause. That is all." Her eyes remained fixed on the viewscreen in front of her. Trip saw her jaw clench. For a Vulcan, her expression was one of frustrated anger.

_Finding out what Tolaris did to T'Pol has really pissed her off!_ thought Trip in surprise.

"He'll continue to hurt people unless he's taken care of permanently," she whispered under her breath. Trip glanced back at Malcolm and his three-man security team in the rear of the shuttle. Ramirez, Mitchell, and Ngele were joking around, busily getting an amazing assortment of potentially deadly devices sorted and secreted about their persons for easy access. Malcolm was done with his preparation already, and seemed absorbed by his sensor readings. Trip turned back to T'Mir.

"We have orders to take him _alive_," he whispered back.

"What would you say if I told you that taking him alive would result in the Romulans winning this war?" returned T'Mir almost inaudibly, finally making eye contact with him. On her face he saw an unwavering belief that what she told him was the truth. He wasn't sure why, but he trusted her.

"I'd say… how can I help?" he replied with quiet intensity.

T'Mir studied him intently. "You are important to the future of the Federation… every bit as important as your captain," she whispered emphatically. "Don't endanger yourself unnecessarily."

Trip gave her a self deprecating smile. "Don't worry 'bout me. I'm not plannin' on dyin' anytime soon," he murmured.

T'Mir exhaled. She appeared relieved. Reaching into her belt pouch, she pulled out a small rectangular device on an armband, and handed it to him under cover of reaching toward his console to make an adjustment there.

"Get this around his arm once he's in custody. We'll take care of the rest. He'll never hurt anyone else. You have my word on it," she breathed.

Trip palmed it and put it in his pocket. "What is it?" he whispered curiously.

"A temporal stabilizer," she replied under her breath. "It's been set to transport its wearer to a time in which the universe existed as a hyperdense ball of matter, prior to what your scientists refer to as the 'Big Bang'. Don't worry. Seventy kilos of biomatter is much too insignificant to change the course of history. It's a commonly used disposal technique when a body would be an inconvenience," she added matter-of-factly. Trip blinked at her in shock, trying to get his mind around the concept.

"We've got a problem," announced Malcolm with his eyes still on the sensor display. The group gathered in the rear of the shuttle fell silent. All eyes turned to Malcolm. He looked disgusted with the situation.

"We've lost the element of surprise. The detention center is under attack. It's the Romulans. The place is like a fortress, and all of the defensive weaponry has been activated. We'll never get in there now."

T"Mir turned the helm over to Trip with a gesture and hastened to the rear of the shuttle to look over Malcolm's shoulder.

"Are you certain they're Romulans?" she asked tersely.

Malcolm increased the sensor resolution to show the small invasion team in detail. "They're wearing those armored EV suits again… looks like they're resistant to phaser _and_ disruptor fire." The guards were firing on the small team of red-clad invaders with phase pistols, phase rifles and disruptors. The figures were dodging the incoming fire as it bounced off their suits and were picking off the defenders one by one with hand disruptors as they advanced toward the entrance to the compound.

T'Mir raised a brow. "Do we have a shoulder-mount phase cannon?" she asked hopefully. Malcolm grinned and exchanged a look with Mitchell, who hefted a heavy-looking duffel in response.

"We never leave home without one!" the young man replied.

The temporal agent looked appropriately impressed. "Can you locate their point of origin?" she asked.

Malcolm turned back to the sensor display with a thoughtful expression. "I suppose they might have beamed down, but their base ship is still in orbit around the gas giant… so a shuttle would make more sense. If I trace the soldiers back to their point of origin…," he murmured half to himself. He paused for a moment while tapping at the sensor controls, then smiled triumphantly and tapped the screen. "…We get the coordinates of their landing vehicle. It's cloaked, but if you look for it, you can see the sensor gap here, see?"

He exchanged a grin with Trip. The trio of security officers behind him were smiling as well.

"Shall I contact the _Dominatrix_ with the coordinates for a site to site transport?" suggested T'Mir. "You'll need a few moments to change uniforms and set up your ambush."

#######################

Jonathan Archer eyed the groveling little Ferengi with something akin to disgust.

"_This_ is the doctor?" he asked in an appalled tone of voice. Their bulbous-nosed snaggle-toothed captive was lying face down on the decking with his face pressed firmly into the floor, whimpering pitifully. The muzzle of Hoshi's phase pistol never wavered.

"This is one of the occupants of the apartment that hospital personnel records identified as being assigned to the two Ferengi physicians qualified to operate the device that we need," clarified Seven. He turned to Hoshi. Maintaining the illusion of submission for their captive, who spoke not a word of English but could certainly read body language, he got out of his chair and fell to one knee before addressing her directly. His tone was that of a supplicant, but his words were to the point.

"Can you determine if he's the one?" he asked with his eyes fixed on the decking in front of him.

"He'll likely need some convincing to get him to talk, but I can try," she replied, keeping her tone as cold and disdainful as she could manage.

"Shoot me, then," replied Seven. He raised his eyes to her challengingly. "I'll recover in a few seconds from a stun blast. You can't hurt me. Trust me. Do it _now_!"

Before Archer could protest, Hoshi swung the muzzle of her phase pistol toward Seven and shot him in the chest at point blank range. Her expression never changed. She turned back to the prisoner, who'd lifted his head from the floor to stare at Seven's limp body in shock. He slammed his forehead back down to the deck with an audible thud when he realized that she was looking at him again.

"Captain, please check him to make sure I didn't kill him," Hoshi said with a jerk of her head toward Seven. Her facial expression made it seem like she was asking him to take out the garbage.

Archer eyed her dubiously for a second. What the hell did the two of them think they were doing? Now they couldn't beam down to the planet until Seven had recovered enough to take the helm.

After assuring that the shuttle's orbit was stable on autopilot, he retrieved the stunned temporal agent and dragged him to the deckplates between the pilot and copilot chairs. Then he pulled out the portable medical scanner and gave him a once over. He could hear their terrified guest presumably spilling his guts in the background as he worked. He couldn't understand a word of it, but it sounded like Hoshi was having trouble shutting him up.

_If Hoshi gets what she needs from the little worm, I'll have to tell Seven that all his pain was worth it_, thought Archer. And there _would_ be pain. Jonathan Archer had never been on the receiving end of a phase pistol stun blast, but he remembered Trip's reaction when T'Pol had been forced to stun him on one of the Chief Engineer's many ill-fated away missions. He'd slept like the dead for six hours, and then moaned and groaned for days afterward about his aches and pains. Archer had found it amusing at the time, but if Seven was going to be similarly affected they'd have to scrub the mission. He didn't find that situation amusing in the least.

He finished the scan and looked at the readings. They were completely normal. The neurologic scan even indicated that the temporal agent was _conscious_. Archer tapped the scanner in the palm of his hand. There was no change. He looked down into Seven's face, and one of the indestructible fellow's eyes cracked open. Archer shifted his body so that Seven's face was hidden from the rear of the shuttle and whispered incredulously, "Are you _awake_?"

Seven grimaced and then grinned. "Unfortunately," he murmured under his breath. "I'll be fine in a minute. Just leave Isis here and proceed as planned. I'll stay down until the Ferengi beams down. It won't be as effective if he doesn't think she killed me. Cover my face."

"But how the hell did you…?"

"They're called 'nanites'… I'll explain later," wheezed Seven. He looked like he was in a considerable amount of pain, but just the fact that he was conscious less than five minutes after a point blank range stun blast was a minor miracle. Archer bit his tongue. Questions could come later. It was time to put the babies back where they belonged. He gave Seven a sympathetic grin and then pulled his jacket off to cover the agent's head and shoulders, simultaneously assuming a somber expression. He turned to find Hoshi opening the Ferengi's cage. Since the transport pad was beneath the cage, they'd all have to get inside to transport down. He checked the transporter coordinates and the sensors. The treatment room was still empty. Hoshi beckoned to Hess. The engineer rose from the bed carrying her stasis case and joined Hoshi within the cage, all the while staring daggers at the Ferengi. Archer suppressed a grin. He wasn't sure whether the cowardly little weasel looked more afraid of Hoshi, who was still holding a phaser to his head, or of Hess, who, though unarmed, topped Hoshi by a head and outweighed both of them by at least 30 pounds of solid muscle. Hoshi gave him a nod, and he activated the transporter.

Once the others were gone, Seven rolled over with an audible groan and sat up… _very_ slowly. Archer backed away from the controls and entered the cage. Elena joined him, grasping his hand with a smile. She had a firm grip on her stasis case.

"Are you sure you're all right?" asked Archer, looking dubiously at Gary Seven's face. His discomfort was plain to see. Seven nodded reassuringly. He gave Archer a half-smile, half-grimace.

"I've got it under control. Good luck," he replied. Then he activated the transporter and the two of them dematerialized.

Isis' transformation took about two seconds flat. She chose female form, evidently for its maternal effectiveness. She stood with her hands on her hips and a very exasperated look on her face.

"Gary, I swear if you ever do that to me again I will just _kill_ you!" she said angrily, and then pointed to the bunks in the rear of the shuttle. "Now get in that bed right_ now_ and don't move until I say so! I'm taking the helm. You can't fly this ship if you can barely walk! Those nanites don't make you invincible, you know. How did you know a point blank stun blast like that wouldn't do permanent damage? I just can't believe you'd _do_ something like that without discussing it with me first! You're so _stupid_ sometimes I just can't…"

He grinned at her sheepishly as she continued her rant, and made his painfully slow way to the rear of the shuttle, where he did as she ordered without argument.

As he reached the bunk and collapsed onto it, T'Mir's voice came over the comm.

"_Dominatrix_, I am sending coordinates for a site to site transport. Please lock on to all personnel on board the _Cat O' Nine_ save myself and transport them to these coordinates at my mark."

Seven was pleased to hear Isis immediately stop her griping and get down to business. He closed his eyes in relief. She was right. It had been an ill-conceived idea, despite the fact that it had been the fastest way to get what they'd needed from the Ferengi. He decided that he wasn't ever going to do it again unless he didn't have a choice. It just hurt too damned much.

########################

_Kreptagh's_ yellow sun beat down upon the heads of the ambush party where they lay in hiding between the rocks and boulders surrounding the clearing. Heat rose in visible waves from an invisible object in the center of the clearing. The atmospheric distortion caused by the sun baked metal of the Romulan shuttle made it nearly visible to the naked eye despite its cloak. Trip Tucker mopped his reddened face beneath the visor of his sensor-baffle equipped helmet with the sleeve of the desert camo uniform he wore and then resumed his careful study of the portable scanner he held in his hands.

"Targets approaching…," he breathed, "…fifty meters and to the southwest." He showed the scanner to Malcolm, who gestured silently to Ngele and Ramirez, sending them to take their positions. Mitchell positioned himself beneath the tripod of the phase cannon to add stability, resting the muzzle of the cannon in the crevice between two huge boulders behind a tuft of wiry blue green desert grass. Malcolm and Trip dropped forward slightly to provide cover fire for the cannon. Once he fired, Mitchell would be a sitting duck. The cannon was much too heavy to allow for rapid movement. Judging from what they'd seen on the sensors, it was also very likely to be the only weapon in their possession capable of penetrating the Romulan's armored EV suits.

Trip's communicator, set for silent alert, buzzed subsonically. He pulled it from his belt with his eyes fixed on the clearing. "Tucker," he responded in a barely audible whisper.

"The alpha team is twenty meters away. The package is _not_ with them. Hold your positions until the beta team arrives," came T'Mir's whispered voice over the com.

"Acknowledged," murmured Trip. His eyes met Malcolm's.

"Hold your fire. The package has not arrived," murmured Malcolm to Ngele, Mitchell and Ramirez. Trip couldn't hear their whispered acknowledgements, but the clearing was absolutely silent when the first of the Romulans entered and began a survey of the perimeter with a portable scanner. Trip held his breath. No sensor baffle in the universe would help them if the Romulans could hear them.

The figure in the clearing turned its eerily opaque face plate directly in Trip's direction. He hunkered down and froze. The bright neon red color of the armored EV suit contrasted sharply with the dun-colored sand of the dusty rock strewn plain. The Romulans were definitely going for intimidation rather than camouflage. It made a peculiar kind of sense. The suits could be used in any terrain. They made a loud statement. The statement was, "We are Romulans, and we're in charge. Surrender now or die." Trip wasn't listening.

The Romulan moved on, completing his circuit, and then waved two other EV suited figures forward. The three of them approached the center of the clearing, and suddenly a square of shuttle interior seemed to be floating in midair about a meter off of the ground. One of the Romulan soldiers entered. He looked like he was walking up empty air, obviously up an unseen ramp. The other two took flanking positions on either side of the open hatch.

"Beta team's arrived, and they've brought company," murmured Trip into his helmet microphone, studying the scanner. "Looks like at least a dozen Orion security guards. Prepare to open fire on my command."

Three more Romulans in red suits entered the clearing at a brisk pace. Practically jogging between them was bedraggled looking Vulcan. The soldier at the Vulcan's back shoved him roughly toward the shuttle hatch with the muzzle of his disruptor. The expression on the prisoner's face wasn't typical for a Vulcan. He looked scared shitless.

Malcolm held up a hand for a silent count of three. On "three", Trip stood up, revealing only the top of his helmet and the muzzle of his weapon, and fired his phaser directly at Tolaris' chest. The stun blast took him down, out of the line of fire. "Fire!" he commanded, and the others opened fire with live weapons on the five Romulans in the clearing. Trip dropped back down behind his boulder, dodging the series of disruptor blasts that converged on his position. He paused for a moment, breathing heavily, and then grinned grimly. It had felt really _good_ to shoot the bastard.

The deep vibratory "thud" of the phase cannon sounded from over his left shoulder. Mitchell had begun his target practice. Trip dropped down to his belly and wriggled his way up a stepwise series of smaller boulders to gain a higher position, away from the point where he'd initially revealed himself. The reports of the phase cannon shook the ground around him repetitively. He peeked out from his new vantage point to a satisfying sight. There were two red-suited figures down, and the remaining three had been driven to shelter between two large boulders roughly ten meters from the now visible shuttlecraft. The shuttle appeared to be equipped with the same sort of energy shield that _Enterprise_ had received at her last refitting, and Tolaris' motionless body lay just outside the perimeter of the shield, the margin of which was made visible by the coruscation of weapons fire on its surface coming from all directions. The last three Romulans were attempting to get to the shuttle, but the intensity of fire was much greater than expected, and Trip could see a whole line of green skinned Orion troops at the margin of the clearing opposite the phase cannon. Their commander had obviously decided to take advantage of his unexpected allies, because none of the Orions were firing on the phase cannon. They were moving laterally, attempting to surround the Romulans. Their weapons were less effective than the phase cannon, but as Trip watched, one of the remaining Romulans left the shelter of the rocks to attempt to return to the shuttle and drew fire from every direction simultaneously. He went down without the need for the phase cannon, his body armor overwhelmed by sheer firepower. With that confirmation of the effectiveness of the Orion offensive, Mitchell turned his attention to the shuttle, attempting to target one of its two field emitters with the phase cannon.

Trip pulled his communicator from his belt and flipped it open.

"Tucker to _Dominatrix_. Do you have us on sensors?"

There was a pause, and then Agent Seven's slightly pained voice replied, "Affirmative, Commander. Are you requesting beam-out?"

"Not yet," replied Trip, "… but can you get a lock on Tolaris and beam him aboard? We can't get to him." He had to raise his voice to be heard over the repetitive vibrations of the phase cannon as it pummeled the shuttle's shield.

There was another pause. "That's a negative, Commander," replied Seven brusquely. "He's too close to the shuttle. The shields are interfering with my transporter lock."

As Trip watched, the single Romulan, presumably the pilot, who'd managed to make it into the shuttle before all hell broke loose peeked his head out of the shuttle hatch, still protected by the shield, and made a rush for Tolaris down the loading ramp. Immediately at least six phaser blasts struck the shield at the point he'd have to exit in order to reach the downed Vulcan. He backed off for a moment, looking back toward the rocks where his fellow soldiers were hiding. His hand went to the side of his helmet as if he were activating some sort of communication device.

_They're gonna rush us and divide our fire so the pilot can snag Tolaris_, thought Trip. If they allowed the Romulan pilot to get Tolaris into the shuttle, they might never get him back. Based on what he'd seen of the way the Romulans had been treating the Vulcan, Trip was strongly tempted just to let them have him… but he couldn't risk letting them have access to the information Tolaris had managed to glean from Hess. He got on his helmet comm.

"Tucker here. Concentrate your fire on the pilot. Cover me. I'm going for Tolaris."

"Commander!" came Malcolm's protest over the comm. Trip ignored him. Mitchell was busy trying to disable the shuttle. Malcolm was protecting Mitchell, and Ramirez and Ngele were pinned down in the middle of the Orion forces on the opposite side of the clearing. He was the only one left, and he'd be damned if he was gonna let Tolaris get away.

Trip scrambled down the pile of smaller rocks he'd been hiding between and jumped down to the sand of the clearing. Behind him he heard the phase cannon firing rate increase, and the shields at the shuttle's entry ramp began to glow bright orange and red as they repelled the full force of both phaser and phase cannon fire from four separate directions. As he reached Tolaris and grabbed him by the shoulders, attempting to drag him far enough away from the shuttle for a beam out before getting shot, a phaser bolt kicked up the sand at his feet. He had time to look up and realize, _Shit! The Orions!_ before the next shot took him in the chest and everything went black.

########################

Nok's hands shook as he grasped the controls of the surgical transporter. The murderous female… who'd insisted on being addressed as "Mistress"… still had a weapon pointed directly at his head.

"Do it now," she ordered coldly, "… or I'll profit by dissecting you and selling your body parts to the Romulans for military research. There's bound to be something they can do with them… especially if some of them are still alive."

The Ferengi blinked. Now that was an intriguing thought. Perhaps the embryos would be worth more if he…

She jabbed him in the ribs. "Now!" she told him impatiently.

"Yes, Mistress!" stammered Nok. He activated the controls. The male slave who'd transported down with them scanned the smaller brown haired female, and then looked up and gave his mistress a respectful nod. She jerked her chin impatiently, and the slave gently assisted the woman off of the table. The obscenely muscled blonde female took her place. There was just something unnatural about the woman's aggressiveness. _Females should not be allowed to look at males in that manner_, he thought disapprovingly. _Especially not female slaves_. Even the Mistress herself was merely coldly disdainful and superior in her manner, as befitted her station. The muscle-bound slave looked at him as if she wanted to tear him limb from limb with her bare hands. It was most unseemly. It was a wonder that the Mistress had purchased her. She couldn't possibly have gotten her money's worth.

He glanced at the Mistress' face. She stood there with her arms crossed, staring at him impatiently. He reached for the bioscanner that the male handed him and inserted it into the input port on the transporter. He pulled it out at the beep and handed it back. The male approached the table again and waited. Nok turned to the controls and activated them.

"You must have spent a lot of time training to learn to do that. It looks complicated," said the Mistress. Nok gave her a surprised look, and then smiled proudly. He took the bioscanner back from the slave and placed it back in its receptacle for storage.

"Not at all… I picked it up the very first time I tried it," he replied, puffing out his chest.

The Mistress smiled at him… she actually smiled! "I suppose an intelligent man such as yourself_ would_ be a faster study than most others," she told him. Then she raised a hand and traced the rim of his left ear with her fingertip, sending shivers down his spine. He gasped involuntarily.

"How does it work, exactly?" she asked curiously.

Nok found himself describing the operation of the surgical transporter in detail. He was initially disappointed that the Mistress had left him behind when she beamed back up to her ship with her slaves and her newly acquired piece of surgical equipment. It wasn't until the guards began hammering at the locked door of the gutted treatment room that he realized how much trouble he was in.

########################

T'Mir sat at the navigator's station of the _Cat O' Nine_ with her eyes fixed on the sensor readout. Alone in the shuttle without witnesses, she allowed herself the luxury of a distressed, "No!"

_Not again_, she thought illogically. _I won't let him die again_. She activated the comm.

"_Dominatrix_, can you get a lock on Commander Tucker and Tolaris and beam them out of there?" she asked urgently.

There was a pause, and then Seven's voice said, "I've been attempting to do so, but Commander Tucker's sensor baffle is preventing me from getting a lock on them. He's lying practically on top of Tolaris… and I can't detect vital signs in either of them."

T'Mir's breath caught in her throat. Her eyes stung with unshed tears. She cleared her throat. "Is it the sensor baffle, or do you think…"

"I can't tell," came Seven's brusque reply. "In any case, neither of us can do anything from here. Our secondary mission is complete and everyone is back on board. We're a bit crowded in here with all of this equipment, so I'll be doing another site to site transport directly to your location once I get clearance from Lieutenant Commander Reed. Stand by."

"Acknowledged," replied T'Mir woodenly as she sat back in her chair and impotently watched the sensor display. The phase cannon continued to pummel the shuttle's shields, but the power of the small portable weapon, so effective against the individual Romulans, wasn't sufficient for the job. The two Romulans who remained outside of the shuttle were methodically picking off their Orion opponents one by one. The larger, unarmored Orions were having a difficult time concealing themselves. The remaining four _Enterprise_ personnel on the other hand, wearing camouflage, body armor, and sensor baffles, and capable of better concealment due to their smaller size, had thus far escaped serious injury as far as she could tell. The sensor baffles blocked vital sign readings, though, so she couldn't be certain of anything except that the phase cannon was still operational. She was tempted to contact Lieutenant Commander Reed for a status report, but realized that with one man down and their target inaccessible, Reed had enough to worry about without further distractions. Left with nothing to do but wait, T'Mir perched herself on the edge of her seat with her eyes fixed on the sensor display and engaged in a series of breathing exercises intended to calm her racing heart. They weren't very effective.

########################

Centurion Arrhae crept silently over the rocks at the periphery of the clearing. He wore nothing but the skin tight hooded garment that was standard issue beneath his combat suit. He'd left the suit itself behind the boulders in the clearing next to the dead body of his second in command. Three other members of his team were lying sprawled in the clearing, also dead, as were most of the attacking Orions. The goal of their mission lay on the ground in the center of the clearing, and unless he managed to silence the_ fvadtn_ phase cannon, he'd never know if the Vulcan was dead or alive. He rather suspected the latter. The human who'd fallen beside the Vulcan in the clearing had seemed bent on risking his life to take the Vulcan into custody. It was unlikely that he'd do that unless he was reasonably certain that the Vulcan was alive, and the human, he was fairly certain, had been the one who shot him. It was hard to tell beneath the helmet and the body armor. The human had looked like he was still breathing when Arrhae had abandoned his suit in order to convince the attackers that every Romulan was accounted for. Arrhae hoped so. He'd be a valuable source of information that just might make up for the disaster that this mission had become… if he could manage to get to him.

Thus far, none of the attackers seemed to have realized the fact that the only Romulan shooting back was the one in the shuttle. The pilot wasn't even a member of the security force. He was doing his best with the shuttle's fixed weaponry, but without mobility he would soon be overcome. The shuttle's shields couldn't hold out forever against the constant pounding of the phase cannon.

Arrhae peeked over the top of the next boulder and then immediately crouched down again. The gunner's back was exposed directly in front of him. He debated his options. Shooting the gunner would stop the phase cannon for a few seconds, but he'd seen a second human down there. Shooting from here would give him warning, and in the time it took for Arrhae to get to the cannon, the second human would no doubt be on him. Not only that, but something had to be done to recoup his team's honor. Losing four men out of six was unacceptable. Even if he managed to get back to the ship with the Vulcan, the lost status would be irretrievable. He needed a valuable prisoner. Three would be even better.

He made his way painstakingly around the boulder in front of him, careful to stay directly behind the gunner to avoid being caught in his peripheral vision. He was directly behind the human and within arm's reach when the man spun around with a knife in his hand, taking him by surprise. The phase cannon finally fell silent as the gunner's eyes widened. Arrhae pointed his disruptor at the center of the human's chest and gestured at the knife with his other hand, indicating that the man should drop it. As soon as he did so, Arrhae stepped up and spun him around, wrapping a forearm around his neck and pressing the disruptor against his right temple. Then he pushed him down the rocky slope. The second human was nowhere to be seen. Arrhae searched the clearing. As soon as the phase cannon fire had ceased, his pilot had approached the edge of the shield. Seeing Arrhae standing there with a hostage, he dropped the shuttle's shields and beckoned him forward. Arrhae pushed the human out onto the sand. He found it strange that the Orions were holding their fire. Then he caught sight of the remaining Orions standing at the edge of the clearing being held at phaserpoint by two humans. As he watched, one of the Orions stepped out of the group and dropped his weapon. The others followed suit, and then the humans did the same. It was a completely baffling scenario. He turned to look back the way he'd come, and found himself face to face with a dark haired human. The man had removed his helmet, and had it under one arm. The human lifted his phase pistol by the grip and dropped it to the sand as Arrhae watched. Then he raised both hands in the air. Arrhae's prisoner stopped struggling, and reached for his helmet as well. Arrhae tightened his choke hold, but all the human did was pull his helmet off and put it under his arm. The two soldiers standing with the Orions did the same. Arrhae looked from one to the other with a puzzled expression. Were they surrendering? What was happening here? It didn't occur to him that the helmet removal might have been a signal until he felt himself dematerialize along with his prisoner. A second later, he was no longer in the clearing.

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Malcolm Reed materialized inside _Cat O' Nine_ and immediately spun in place, searching for the members of his team. Ramirez stood to his left, phaser at the ready, and gave him a nod. Ngele's bright white smile lit up his dark face. He had a phase pistol in each hand, and handed one to him, butt first.

"Where are the rest?" asked Malcolm.

T'Mir, at helm with a resigned expression on her face, apparently ready to leave orbit as soon as everyone was aboard, answered. "Agent Seven thought it wise to hold Mitchell and his companion in the pattern buffer until the rest of you were prepared to receive them."

Malcolm nodded. It made sense. The enemy soldier… he assumed he was a Romulan, although he could have been human or even Vulcan in that skin tight grey suit with a full hood covering his head down to the eyebrows… had been holding a disruptor pressed directly to Mitchell's head. The best way to make certain that Mitchell _kept_ his head was to present his captor with overwhelming firepower from the first moment he came aboard.

"What about Commander Tucker and Tolaris? Are they on_ Dominatrix_?" asked Malcolm.

T'Mir exhaled heavily. Then she met his eyes. "Commander Tucker did not remove his helmet at the signal. From that we must assume that at the very least he is too badly injured to do so. His sensor baffle prevented Agent Seven from locking on to either of them. Less than a minute after your team dematerialized, the single remaining Romulan managed to drag both of them on board the Romulan shuttle. It recloaked and is on its way back to the base ship as we speak."

Malcolm just stared at her. _Damn it to bloody hell_, he thought in frustration. _The Romulans have Trip. Again._

TBC in Episode 4


End file.
